These Lying Eyes (11 page)

“How do you know?” Hitch demanded. “He’z flirting. That girl’z too pretty not to be flirting.”

It wasn’t even that they were ever a couple. Or that she wanted to be one. She just wanted…

Not this.

“That is his science partner.” Zizi said, petting Mina’s ear.

“He izn’t flirting because hiz dimple is all put away. He alwayz flirtz with hiz dimple.” Poppy said, gingerly adjusting the leg still wrapped in bright pink bandages.

“That’s not true,” Mina said, thinking of all the time Max had flashed that dimple at her. “That doesn’t mean he’s flirting.

Max looked up and met Mina’s eyes, even through the mass of people between them.

“But hiz dimple waz alwayz out with Mina,” Hitch said, dropping next to Zizi.

“Yes.” Zizi and Poppy said together.

“It’s just not true.” Mina repeated while Hitch snorted. She looked away from Max not wanting to feel his gaze, like it was a stroke along her arm.

“Mina,” she thought she heard Max say as she slipped into the library, but that was just wishful thinking.

“You like-liked him back,” Poppy said, while they wove through the nearly empty tables.

“She likes him still.” Zizi leapt off Mina’s shoulder, flying in zigzags over head.

“You’re crazy.” Mina whispered under her breath. But they got to her, like they always could, and though she wanted to say that she’d never felt anything besides friendship. She remembered the times she felt a thrill down her back when Max was laughing with her, when they were laughing together, and how when that happened she wouldn’t let herself think the what ifs…

It was only after things were over that she was haunted by the look in Max’s face. The light in his eye, the gentle way he always put himself between her and Hailey, and how the sun, itself, wrapped its rays around him. He’d never been just the old pipsqueak; she’d been lying to herself, and now that it was too late, she couldn’t miss the truth.

It was worse that he still sat next to her in classes. But he was still the same old Max, still not a jerk, and he would never obviously avoid her.

She twisted her mop onto the top of her head, refused to sigh, and slumped into a chair at her now-usual, lonely table.

“That dimple didn’t mean what you said it did,” she said as she remembered yesterday when they had to read the sexy parts from
Twelfth Night
together
.
They’d added all the emotional nuance of a puppet.

“Do you regret the truth?” Zizi asked, understanding without explanation, how Mina’s thoughts circling Max.

Mina thought for a long while, staring at the wall, chin on her hand.

“No.” She smiled at her friends, opened her bag, and pulled out her computer and notes. Going over what she’d discovered so far. Being a Seventh, meant that she was the seventh kid born to her parents, which was just false. She was number 4; Ams was 7. Mina discovered the author of the adventures books was British and, of course, dead; the books, after all, were written in the 20’s.

The beep of the occasional book being checked out, the library door creaking open, provided background music to her thoughts as she stared at her notes and tapped her pen. Beep, creak, tap, tap, tap. Beep, creak, tap, tap, tap. Mina dropped her head to her bag, closed her eyes, and began to list what she was going to do. Search her grandmother’s cabin by the lake, search their little ocean front house, go through her parents stuff, don’t get caught. Work from there.

And maybe unearth enough courage to talk to Grace. Mina had discovered that just because she didn’t believe she was crazy; it was a lot harder to trust someone else to believe it. Especially after the last few weeks when everyone had youTube evidence to revisit if they doubted Mina’s sanity.

“There’s that crazy girl.” The stage whisper pulled Mina from her reverie, but she didn’t pretend to not hear. She lifted her head from her bag and turned to see two girls who were standing at the end of the closest stack. Mina didn’t know them. But they were definitely older than her.

“Didn’t you hear Erik say it was some sort of imbalance with her vitamins?” said the one with rounder face and a flash of shame in her eyes.

“That’s nonsense.” The first scoffed. She was tall, curvy, and beautiful, despite her snake’s eyes. “I googled it, and it’s just made up excuses. My mom said if it were me, I’d be medicated and housed somewhere.”

“Your mom said that,” drawled the other. That girl was far more shocked than Mina. It wasn’t the first time Mina had heard that one.

“It doesn’t do any good to ignore mental illness. That’s how school shootings happen.”

The second girl, the nicer one, gasped.

Mina barely prevented an eye roll and turned back to her notes.

The whispering continued; the weight of their gaze did not abate.

Mina popped a piece of gum in her mouth. Should she move? It was stupid to move, but it was stupid to let them bug her.

“You need to leave her alone,” a deep voice said. Slightly husky, wholly familiar.

Mina paused in the middle of snapping her gum.

“Finally,” Zizi said.

“Yay,” Poppy squealed.

Hitch growled.

Max stepped forward, blocking the girls’ view of Mina. He had been sitting one table over, but behind her, so she wouldn’t see him. She frowned at his bag. Only one over. As if he couldn’t quite find it within himself to sit across the library, but couldn’t quite join her.

She scowled.

“Or what?” asked the mean girl.

“There is no ‘or,’” Max said. “There’s just not being total hags.”

“Excuse me?” the mean one again. The other was silent and flushed, and by the way her gaze was directed at the floor, probably ashamed.

But Mina wasn’t watching her. She was watching the tips of Max’s ears turn red, a sure sign he was furious. She saw how he stepped between them, as if she needed him to rescue her.

And she nearly choked on her anger. She slammed her computer closed and shoved her books back into her bag.

“Max,” she could barely speak; encompassed by that stupid bag—one flipping table over—and felt her face flushing.

He turned around surprised; she knew he could tell she was upset.

“I don’t need you to stand up for me.”

“I’m just,” he protested. But he stopped. He could catalogue her signs of anger as well as she him. Her fingers clutched the strap of her messenger bag. She could feel the heat in her cheeks, but he seemed surprised.

“I…” he tried again.

“I don’t need you to ignore me for weeks, and then try to swoop to my rescue.”

The girls were laughing. At them. At the intensity of their emotions, as if they were nothing more than players on a soap opera, and real feelings weren’t stabbing at both of them.

“I haven’t…”

“What you think sitting next to me in our same classes and avoiding me the rest of the time is? Being friends?”

Max said nothing, but the red in his ears was nearly crimson now.

“Friends ask, Max,” Mina said softly, watching Max’s jaw tighten. His flush was spreading from his ears to his cheek bones.

Mina added, “They ask if you’re ok. They ask what happened. They just…ask.”

She looked past him to the two girls; they were both…smirking. Mina spun, refusing to hurry, as she walked out of the library. It was anger that blinded her now, but regardless, it was only Hitch’s guidance that prevented her from slamming into random people.

“Mina,” Max called.

She glanced back; he was only steps behind her. She shook her head at him, hoping he’d just let her go. But as she did, she caught sight of her cousin, Peter. He was looking up; Mina followed his gaze and saw…Zizi.

The sprite zigzagged, and Peter’s whole head moved as he followed her flight.

And Mina’s fury disappeared, overwhelmed by an ocean of hurt.

“Pete?” she whispered, but he caught the sound of her voice, and with it, he froze.

Their eyes met.

He paled.

And with the guilt in those familiar eyes, all the air rushed out of her lungs.

“Mina,” Max said, taking a gentle hold of her arm.

But she didn’t turn, though Max must have felt her trembling. She stared at her cousin, tears welling in her eyes, until she bit the inside of her lip. She was not going to let those tears fall. Not in the middle of the school hallway. Not as the other kids were already circling, excited for yet another Mina Roth meltdown.

“You…” She began, licking her lips, she opened her mouth. But she couldn’t find words. The emotion was too big for words.

Peter said nothing, though it seemed as though everything that needed to be said was communicated by the weight of the other’s eyes, with the emotions that roiled between them.

She could see that he was sorry. He could see that it wasn’t enough. She could see that he wanted, needed even, to explain. But he could see that…she just couldn’t. Not with him. Not with her Petey. The guy who’d taught her to play the guitar in her loneliness but never explained why she was so alienated from everyone by what she saw.

And she could see that there was more to his story. But it didn’t matter.

Not yet.

“Are you kidding me?” She barely knew she was speaking; wasn’t even certain what she was saying until the words left her.

“Mina?” Max still held her bicep, his fingers moved—back and forth, back and forth—.

“I, I…Mina…” Peter’s voice was soft, hardly audible.

“It will be ok, Mina.” Zizi said, landing on Mina’s shoulder, rubbing her hand along Mina’s neck.

“Are you kidding me?” She repeated, whispering this time. But Peter knew what she was saying.

“Mina, please,” Max said.

“How long?” Mina demanded, knowing Max was absorbing every word, as was the breathless crowd.

Peter shook his head.

“How long have you known?” Her hands were shaking from the death grip on her messenger bag.

Nothing.

“How long,” she demanded, fierce now.

Peter swallowed and said something, but she couldn’t hear him through the pulse pounding in her ears.

“What?”

And this time she caught it.

“Always.”

The tears were back, but Mina wouldn’t let them see.

None of them could see.

“Always?” she asked softly, only the slightest hiccup in her voice, and the hall was quiet enough that everyone heard her. And that telltale hiccup.

“Mina...” Peter and Max said together, both voices pleading.

“Just give me a chance,” Max added. “I…”

Mina closed her eyes to block all the faces, the two she loved—the mass she’d happily never see again.

“It will be ok,” Zizi said again, though they both knew that was a promise Zeez couldn’t make.

“Don’t cry,” Poppy ordered.

“Just walk Mina,” Hitch said. “Walk away.” His voice was the tender one, the careful one, the one she needed to hear.

“Walk away,” he repeated, landing on her shoulder, pressing his hand into her neck, somehow anchoring her despite his tiny size.

And she did.

Chapter 9

“You didn’t go to your appointment today,” Dad said as Mina pushed herself away from the dinner table. Sarah was already clearing the dishes. Erik and the triplets were watching cartoons in the family room. Mina had expected this conversation before. But when she’d come home, late, wet, and without her jacket, her parents were on the phone with her oldest siblings Jase and Kate. Those two were—thankfully—planning to backpack Eastern Europe next semester rather than return to their colleges. Jase and Kate’s timing couldn’t have been better for distracting their parents.

Mom stood, as Dad spoke, rounding the table, and pulling a chair between the two of them.

Mina licked her lips and looked at Dad. Mom was prepping to referee. Just from the way her parents were turned towards each other, Mina could tell that her mom had coached Dad. He was controlled. He was even—not angry—more on the edge of irritation.

That was incredibly surprising seeing as how she’d had her Vespa for only days. Mina’d expected a much longer period of using the scooter to control her.

“I’m not going anymore,” Mina said, forgetting the Vespa in the next moment. Even she heard the defiance in her voice. And as she recognized it, she knew she shouldn’t have said it like that, especially with the way Mom’s eyelid twitched just the slightest bit.

Mina swallowed, waiting for Dad’s objection.

For his command.

She could see it coming, and she closed her eyes for it was a sight that she didn’t want. Dad had been so nice lately, and she’d ruined it. Why hadn’t she talked differently? Softly like Mom? Sweetly like Sarah? Teasingly like Kate? Why hadn’t she tried to tell him how she felt?

Only he didn’t explode. Mina cracked her eyes, and he was just looking at her. With an expression she couldn’t identify.

But, maybe if she wasn’t so…incapable of talking to him, he wouldn’t be so stalwart against telling her the big secret about why she was so different. Knowing, though, that he didn’t want to explain it to her made her feel…like the kid he wished they didn’t have.

But Mom shifted, placed a caressing hand on Dad’s, and asked for both parents, “Why?”

It was Mom’s softness that let Mina and Dad have a chance to try again.

Mina felt like she was navigating new waters. After all, she never had been able to not set Dad on edge.

He swallowed.

Just like she did when she needed a moment. She stared at him; he was trying so hard to wait. It was physical for him, controlling his need to fix things, and giving her a chance.

She was his only kid with any red in her hair, though she had just as many gold curls as she did red. Her eyes were the same gray. She was the only one who clearly had the stamp of him on her, and yet, he was so foreign to her.

She decided to try for bald honesty, “It makes me feel like crap.”